Does this photo show the M4 highway connecting Aleppo to Latakia?

An picture spreads on news sites and on social media showing a long bridge running between the mountains, which its publishers claimed showed the "M4 highway linking Aleppo to Latakia."

The photo was published by the correspondent of Al-Mayadeen TV channel, Khaled Askif, on his Twitter account on October 8, in a tweet in which he said, "This is not Europe, this is the Latakia-Aleppo highway."

The Iranian news agency (Tasnim) also published the same picture in 2018 as being of the M4 international highway in a news article entitled: “Yes.. this picture is from Syria,” in which it came, “A snapshot showing the Latakia - Aleppo highway, which was implemented by the Ministry of Transport in Syria in cooperation with Al-Khurafi International group with 98 km long.

The prosecution garnered a remarkable reaction after many accounts on social media contributed to publish it. You will find a number of them in the sources table at the end of the article.

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RightsCon kicks off with the participation of Verify-Sy

Refute the claim

The (Verify-sy) platform team conducted a research using open source techniques to verify the claim that the attached picture is from the Latakia - Aleppo highway in Syria, and it turned out to be incorrect.

The results of the reverse search showed that the image spread widely on the internet and social media, and was attributed during the past years to many countries as one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in them, for example: Nepal, Indonesia and also Pakistan and finally Syria as the mentioned claim in this article.

By digging deeper with advanced tools, the team found that the first person who posted the photo on August 1, 2007 was jdting account. On Panoramio site, which specialized in publishing images linked to Google-owned maps, which was shutted down completely on November 4, 2016.

By searching for archived versions of the site, the team found an archived copy on October 10, 2016, showing the image accompanying the claim.

And it was written in the description of the photo that it was taken in South Korea, specifically at a bridge in Hoengseong District, Gangwon-do Province in South Korea, and attached it to the coordinates of the photo's location on Google Maps.

Through the coordinates attached to the description of the image, and using Google maps (Street view) we found through pictures from the bottom of the bridge that it is identical to the bridge shown in the image accompanying the claim.

By continuing the extensive search and using the information we obtained, the team found a Korean commercial website called (woojung 365) which sells an expressway card (coupon) showing the same bridge as it’s printed, and it was written in its description, translated from the Korean language “Yeongdong Hongseong Bridge”, which means the bridge that we found in the previous result.

By Searching for video clips of the bridge, according to the latest information, the team found a video clip showing the bridge by a drone on the channel of the (Meritz) Korean company, which was published on June 1, 2021 in which the aforementioned bridge appears at 2:56, almost identical to the picture accompanying the claim.

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conclusion